Methods to study microbial adhesion on abiotic surfaces

Microbial biofilms are a matrix of cells and exopolymeric substances attached to a wet and solid surface and are commonly associated to several problems, such as biofouling and corrosion in industries and infectious diseases in urinary catheters and prosthesis. However, these cells may have several benefits in distinct applications, such as wastewater treatment processes, microbial fuel cells for energy production and biosensors. As microbial adhesion is a key step on biofilm formation, it is very important to understand and characterize microbial adhesion to a surface. This study presents an overview of predictive and experimental methods used for the study of bacterial adhesion. Evaluation of surface physicochemical properties have a limited capacity in describing the complex adhesion process. Regarding the experimental methods, there is no standard method or platform available for the study of microbial adhesion and a wide variety of methods, such as colony forming units counting and microscopy techniques, can be applied for quantification and characterization of the adhesion process.This work was financially supported by: Project UID/EQU/00511/2013-LEPABE, by the FCT/MEC with national funds and co-funded by FEDER in the scope of the P2020 Partnership Agreement; Project NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000025 - RL2_Environment&Health, by FEDER funds through Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade-COMPETE, by the Programa Operacional do Norte (ON2) program and by national funds through FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia; European Research Project SusClean (Contract number FP7-KBBE-2011-5, project number: 287514), Scholarships SFRH/BD/52624/2014, SFRH/BD/88799/2012 and SFRH/BD/103810/2014

An overview of European efforts in generating climate data records

The Coordinating Earth Observation Data Validation for Reanalysis for Climate Services project (CORE-CLIMAX) aimed to substantiate how Copernicus observations and products can contribute to climate change analyses. CORE-CLIMAX assessed the European capability to provide climate data records (CDRs) of essential climate variables (ECVs), prepared a structured process to derive CDRs, developed a harmonized approach for validating essential climate variable CDRs, identified the integration of CDRs into the reanalysis chain, and formulated a process to compare the results of different reanalysis techniques. With respect to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the systematic application and further development of the CORE-CLIMAX system maturity matrix (SMM) and the spinoff application performance metric (APM) were strongly endorsed to be involved in future implementations of C3S. We concluded that many of the current CDRs are not yet sufficiently mature to be used in reanalysis or applied in climate studies. Thus, the production of consistent high-resolution data records remains a challenge that needs more research urgently. Extending ECVs to close climate cycle budgets (e.g., essential water variables) is a next step linking CDRs to sectoral applications

Optical remote sensing of marine and inland waters “BELCOLOUR-2” (SR/00/104). Final Report.

This report describes the research carried out in the framework of the BELCOLOUR-2 project, funded as a thematic network by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) STEREO programme over the period December 2006-December 2011. The general objective of the BELCOLOUR-2 project was “to improve the quality of existing optical remote sensing products for marine and inland waters based on new knowledge and to develop new products (including primary production and partial pressure of CO2) for key applications such as aquaculture and air-sea CO2 fluxes.” BELCOLOUR-2 benefited from the experience built up in the previous BELCOLOUR-1 project (2002-6) whose results can be found at http:www.mumm.ac.be/BELCOLOUR